Family in Five Seasons

     Fall
My husband slips away
from our daughter who he claims
is not listening.  I am the translator
of their intent.  Fallen leaves

are destroying our lawn.

We consider solutions: pile
them in the soggiest corner
surrounded by wire, bag them
for collection, or keep them
as they are, transforming
green into splotches of brown. 
My husband wheezes,
shoves them away; my daughter
swings, does not hear him.
I want to go away from this

lawn of possibility,

to forests or concrete
that expect nothing. 

     Winter

Everything glistens today.
I turn away, blink ambivalence,

doubt the snow’s faultlessness.

Before the sunset, before the strangers'
cars line up along our over traveled street,
we are both ordinary and beyond the ordinary,
my daughter and I, lodging the carrot,
the apple, the scarf around the serene neck.
Once inside, my daughter's face: orange, yellow,
pale red from the stoked fire.  For a few minutes,
breathless, limbs at ease, I feel beautiful;

imagine my belly is not scarred landscape,

my surgeries, not gnarled. 

I wait for my husband,

want to accept this day,
our life as we have created it.
           

     Spring

Our soil lacks lime;
only a few crocuses and one
hosta push through its hardness.
What we need is a landscaper,
everything wrenched out by its roots,

to begin again.  My husband returns
from the farm stand, confident he has learned
the shade loving varieties. 
With his spade he digs deeper,
protects the roots with organic fertilizer,
mixes the soapy water in the spray bottle,
not quite willing to murder the aphids.
I want to care about the garden;

I do not.  My house is a hungry house:

thirty year old documents,
mildew rugs dangling over dusty

chairs, the garage a gangway:

stations of need. 
I am one woman,

these flowers luxury.  
 
     Summer

My daughter is first and last out of the pool.
When she needs me, it is to sit by the pool's edge,
to leap off of, to measure
her distance from my toes to dive point. 
My toes are stalks shooting upwards,

my knobby knees flat,

thighs solid against the deck. 

I steady my feet, stiffen them
upright; they become the small of a back

for her.  When her weight becomes too much,
she persists, just one more time.
My husband asks why I don't say no.
No is far from my body, my canal of hope.

     This Morning

Twelve hours away from war,

we are helpless, spectators.
Four millimeter plastic, two rolls

of tape, six batteries.

My friend tells me she is ready.
I want to leap into her brain, her smiling face,
discover who she swims among. 

In my sea, there are only families split into two. 

Tonight, in my world, there is Math. 
My husband explains the figures
as he understands them: visually, spatially.
My daughter speaks them: a story

with illustrations.   They have overcome
their first irritations. In the kitchen,

a room away, I listen
as though under water,

my body, my brain quantifying

distances of bombs, bacteria,

their closeness to my right

triangle, the sum of my parts,

my single faith.